John O. Brennan Career highlights What were his career highlights? Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst and spent 25 years with the agency.
What is notable about his time at the CIA?
What is notable about John O. Brennan's time at the CIA?
Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst and spent 25 years with the agency. He was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton. In 1996, he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 U.S. servicemen. In 1999, he was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet, then-Director of the CIA. Brennan became deputy executive director of the CIA in March 2001. He was director of the newly created Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003 to 2004, an office that sifted through and compiled information for President Bush's daily top secret intelligence briefings and employed the services of analysts from a dozen U.S. agencies and entities. One of the controversies in his career involves the distribution of intelligence to the Bush White House that helped lead to an "Orange Terror Alert", in late 2003. The intelligence, which purported to list terror targets, was highly controversial within the CIA and was later discredited. An Obama administration official does not dispute that Brennan distributed the intelligence during the Bush era but said Brennan passed it along because that was his job. His last post within the Intelligence Community was as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and 2005, which incorporated information on terrorist activities across U.S. agencies.  Brennan then left government service for a few years, becoming Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) and the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC). He continued to lead TAC after its acquisition by Global Strategies Group in 2007 and its growth as the Global Intelligence Solutions division of Global's North American technology business GTEC, before returning to government service with the Obama administration as Homeland Security Advisor on January 20, 2009.  On January 7, 2013, Brennan was nominated by President Barack Obama to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  In September 2017, Brennan was named a Distinguished Non-Resident Scholar at The University of Texas at Austin, where he also acts as a Senior Advisor to the University's Intelligence Studies Project. CANNOTANSWER
He was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton.
Jeffrey W. Castelli is a CIA officer who served as CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the Niger uranium forgeries. His subsequent involvement in the CIA-led kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr would lead to his subsequent sentencing to seven years in prison, by an Italian court, in 2013.

Convicted to seven years in prison in the Imam Rapito affair 

Castelli was CIA station chief in Rome at the time of the kidnapping of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr on February 17, 2003, and was among 26 U.S. nationals (and one of the few with confirmed identities) subsequently indicted by Italian authorities for their involvement in what in the Italian press is referred to as the Imam Rapito (or "kidnapped cleric") affair.

On February 4, 2013, Castelli was convicted to seven years in prison, by a Milan court., along with three other CIA officials. None of the convicted US officials were present at the trial and none of them have been extradited to Italy later.

See also 
 Extraordinary rendition by the United States

External links 
Jeff Castelli at CooperativeResearch

Further reading 
 Kunhanandan Nair, Berlin "Devil and His Dart: How the CIA is Plotting in the Third World" Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1986 (117)
 Barton Gellman, "A Leak, then a Deluge", The Washington Post, October 25, 2005

References 

People of the Central Intelligence Agency
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists is a 2019 memoir by Tracy Walder about her work in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Jessica Anya Blau assisted with the book, and it was published by St. Martin's Press.

Jeff Rowe of the Associated Press (AP) stated that the book "is more a diary of the author’s journey" instead of "an exploration of decision-making at the highest levels of government".

Background
The author, born Tracy Schandler, grew up in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles. An alumna of University of Southern California and a member of the Delta Gamma sorority, first decided to work for the CIA when she encountered a CIA recruiting table at USC in 2000. She previously initially planned to be a history teacher. She printed out her resume and gave a copy to the staffer at the booth.

She worked for both the CIA and FBI, with her book showing a preference for employment at the former. In the CIA she entered the Weapons of Mass Destruction office and gained the post of "staff operations officer". Her task was to manage the Al Qaeda threat. She enjoyed her work but decided she did not want to do as much travel anymore.

In May 2004 she began working for the FBI after leaving the CIA, and she was employed by the agency for 14 months. There she worked on the Chi Mak counter-intelligence case. She stated that sexism was an issue at the FBI, and while she believed it would go away when she was promoted to higher levels, it continued to affect her; she stated that sexism was not as much of an issue at the CIA.

She left the FBI circa July 2005, and she taught history at the Hockaday School in Dallas, at the high school level. By 2020 she planned to end her time teaching and had joined the board of the organization Girl Security. She married a man and had a child with him.

Blau is a novelist. She stated in an interview with Zac Crain of D Magazine that Walder is "obviously brilliant, but she doesn’t have a sense of what about her is interesting".

Contents
Publishers Weekly stated that the book has "rapid prose".

The book shows paragraphs and sentences that are blacked over as Walder had to have her book reviewed by the CIA before publishing. Kirkus Reviews wrote that, including in regards to the Iraq War, the author "fiercely defends the CIA". Rowe also described her as "a CIA loyalist". She wrote text defending the CIA's role in regards to 9/11 Commission Report and torture in the George W. Bush administration.

Reception
Publishers Weekly gave the book a star, and stated that the book is "fast-paced and intense".

Kirkus describes it as "A mostly breezy read through some undeniably challenging and threatening circumstances."

Rowe stated that "some insight into how the two agencies communicate would have been illuminating."

Adaptations
 there were plans for a television series for ABC. Ellen Pompeo had purchased the story rights.

References

External links
 

2019 non-fiction books
American memoirs
Books about the Central Intelligence Agency
Books about the Federal Bureau of Investigation Bill Harlow (born May 30, 1950) is a retired U.S. Navy captain, author, and public relations specialist. He has been the top spokesperson for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and worked in the White House dealing with National Security Media issues.

Publications

Circle William 
Circle William is a novel about two brothers. One brother, Jim, is the White House Press Secretary and his younger brother, Bill, is the captain of the USS Winston Churchill. When the United States' Government learns of Libya's plan to drop chemical weapons on the Israeli Knesset, they must work together. Their first step is to prepare for a chemical, nuclear, or germ attack otherwise known as to set a "Circle William." What complicates their mission is Washington Post journalist, Sue O'Dell, who plants to write a feature on Bill.

Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives 
Harlow co-authored this book with Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr, a former CIA undercover officer before he joined the CIA Counterterrorism Center. The book goes in-depth into Rodriquez's experience.  The authors claim that aggressive measures such as enhanced interrogation saved American lives after the September 11th attacks

At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA 
Harlow co-authored this book with George Tenet. This book is the narration of Tenet's time at the CIA particularly the time surrounding the September 11th attacks.  According to the authors, the book demonstrates the CIA's attempts to prepare the United States against numerous threats, understand the events that led to 9/11, and explain and offer information that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Tenet and Harlow offer their interpretations on President George W. Bush's "sixteen words" in his 2003 State of the Union Address and Tenet's true context of his "slam dunk" comment.

The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism: From al Qa'ida to ISIS 
Harlow co-authored this book with Michael Morell, a former acting director and deputy director of the CIA.

Professional life 
Harlow retired from the Navy with the rank of captain in 1997. He then became the chief of public affairs for the CIA. Additionally, Harlow has been the Navy's depute spokesperson in Europe, special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy and as an assistant White House Press Secretary for national security and foreign affairs.

Personal life 
Harlow's parents are both U.S. Navy veterans. Currently, he lives in northern Virginia.

References 

1950 births
Living people
Writers from Virginia
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
Place of birth missing (living people)
United States Navy officers
American public relations people
People of the Central Intelligence Agency
American male non-fiction writers